Keep out-The Journal of Steven Earl Johnson-June 1978
by aurochsandangels
Summary: Excerpt from Steve's journal. At 23,he's lost his eye,best friend,girl,and career,but fate decides to dangle one more carrot in front of him,a ray of hope before the Steve we knew in 85 and 86 is unleashed on the world.Ongoing piece.Just a hobby.Will add to it.


I rent a room and spend half the day laying in the dark, staring up at where the ceiling should be. I can't sleep, I'm not hungry enough to go out and the thought of getting drunk again turns my stomach inside out. So do my other "Prospects." Wandering around the rest of the day and maybe half the night looking for some way to get laid, some girl whose pretty enough, but who doesn't care that I am a dim-bulb, that I've nothing important to say about anything. After a little while none of them care about that. I got more than a few tricks to make them believe in me, at least for a few hours. They tell me I'm pretty, even with this thing where my eye should be. They tell me I've got an innocent face and I make them repent it. We get it on, I make them laugh for a while, then its over.

Not tonight though. I don't want to say goodbye to someone else. I've got my harp, that's one thing that'll never walk away from me. I got really good at it last year after messing around with it for a while. It's no one but us in the dark, me my harp and _I shall be free;_

_Well, I took me a woman late last night  
I's three-fourths drunk she looked all right  
'Til she started peelin' off her onion gook  
She took off her wig, said, "How do I look?"  
I's high flyin', bare naked ...Out the window._

Now I'm making myself laugh. I don't need anyone.

I got restless around three in the afternoon. Went out and wandered around for a while. I went to the library and started looking around for diaries of important people. I couldn't find anything so I asked the lady sitting at the desk. She looks at me all disgusted and says;  
"That's not a _Category,_ what exactly are you looking for, something specific?"

She's starting to make me feel like an idiot. I'm getting edgy and then I remember what Mrs Doctor said.  
"Anne Frank, you got any books by Anne Frank?"  
She looks like she going to bust a stitch, then she writes down some numbers on a card and hands it to me. I'm a little stumped, thinking she's given me her phone number, but she points past me to the far end of the room then folds up like a clam. She's done with me, but I get it. I follow the numbers on the card to the matching numbers on the shelves.

There it is. It's a little book, a ratty paperback looking all forlorn in the middle of a bunch of big bulky pieces of crap. There's a picture of a skinny little girl on the front. She's smiling, I love how happy she looks, real sweet like the world is still beautiful and all the fucked up evil shit hasn't got to her yet. I can tell it's a very old picture, and something about that kind of bugs me. She's looking right at me through all the years like she wants me to be happy with her. I don't know what this girl did or what she's got to say with so few years under her hat, but I'm intrigued. Now I'm thinking of how the witch at the desk treated me. I don't feel like wading through that again to get permission to read a book. Fuck it. I stick it in my back pocket and go.

Later on I pick this thing up, this book I'm writing in now. I'd forgotten about it but I was in the drug store procuring a few necessities and happened to go past the aisle where there was a bunch of school stuff; notebooks and staplers. That's something I never thought about buying; when your life's a big deal when you got all those things going on that make you someone, I guess you have to keep everything stapled together in case the wind blows hard and wants to throw it all to hell. A couple staples, that's the difference between you getting to be you, and you ending up being someone like me. Maybe Mrs. Doctor was right.I need to write this crap down and get it out of my head.

The shelves in the store offer up a fairly limited variety of stuff, even though it's a good-sized place where you could probably do your apocalypse shopping no problem. What they got is all cut and dry, nothing fancy. Notebooks; black blue, red, green, lots of pages for when you got big ideas, fewer pages if you're not sure. Toilet paper, white, none of that colored stuff. Black combs, bottles of green aftershave and toys. There's plastic baby dolls for girls, cars for boys, big jars of bubbles, and boxes of little plastic food. That last one tickles me. Giving a kid plastic food? Seems to me if you give them that other stuff you're already telling then who they are, you're already taking away something that's not yours to take away. A kid doesn't get that, they aren't thinking yet about how the world is going to pigeonhole them. Here's a doll babe, you best remember it's your duty for the rest of your life to give it up for someone else. Forget it and you'll end up with a reputation you don't want. Here you go little dude, here's a truck. Better keep that engine running or you know what people will say. But what's a kid going to do with a plastic dinner, little plastic sauce bottles and pieces of cake? He's going to think a lot about what he could with the real thing I guess; same thing with the bubbles. Laying there in the grass on a nice day a kid could dream and be anybody in all those rainbow worlds floating to the sun. If I ever have a kid that's what we're going to do, Blow bubbles and play with food. I'll never have any kids though, so that's one or two less problems for the world.

Anyways, everything's pretty utility until I come across those little "Books" Lady Dr. was talking about. It's like whoever was in charge of filling up the store decided one day there weren't enough diaries, and then when they mad up their mind about that they started thinking there weren't enough sizes and patterns and colors, like maybe these books you dump your secrets and your trash in ought to be like part of your wardrobe. Fishing through the stacks I saw big ones with flowered covers, big enough to write your whole life story in; but I was thinking what if you got halfway into that big book and realized one day you hated flowers? Whatever kind of flowers those are on the outside. I guess you could cover them up but you'd still know they were under there. You could switch to another book for part two, but then there'd always be that doubt. Maybe tomorrow I'll hate this picture, I'll hate this color. Why the Hell did I start this in the first place?

They got some with puppies, with happy faces, plaid, and some nice scenes of waterfalls. I finally find one like, I mean I really like it; it's a picture of a girl standing on a seashell, floating on the ocean towards an island. She's naked but her long hair is blowing around, keeping her covered up and its raining flowers all around her. Everything is summertime blue, the sky and the sea all whitecaps and foam, and she's got some crazy shit going on around her; people floating around in the air and this other lady running to meet her with a blanket. But it's the look on her face that gets me. Its like she's a million miles away and all that wild stuff going on doesn't even register because wherever she was before she got stuck in this scene is still a sweet dream in her head, she's still there. The present insists on itself, demands action but she's not listening. Is it someone? Is it someplace? I wonder what it would be like being loved by a girl like that, being the one in that faraway look of hers. I don't know, maybe it would get to you after a while, and what if it wasn't you?...I want to come back to this, I want to live in for a while, but I don't want her keeping my secrets, looks like she's got enough of her own.

Blue, orange, purple? I can't see living with any of those for too long. I keep searching and way back, where it fell behind all the others I find what I'm looking for. It's about the size of a paperback with a fake black leather cover, like a cheap bible. The pages are pretty thin, so there's a lot of them. What I like most about it though is that it doesn't look like any of those other fancy books. There are no lines on the paper and it's got maps in it, a world map, a map of mountain ranges, lakes and rivers; and the best one, the seas and oceans. This one's a surprise. In the back of the book there's this big two-sided fold out of the world, one sides got the land, and the others got the water. I like it so much I decide walk out with it in a bag instead of the usual place. But I have to go all the same, its only seven and the stores already closing. Nobody's in here but me, and one cashier.

The checkout girl is pretty. I look her over as she's coming back from locking the doors; she's got long black hair but it's bound up in a funny ponytail that reminds me of the alien chicks in old science fiction movies. She's got light brown eyes tilted up a little at the corners. She looks a little hard and proud and jaded but there's something soft about the corners of her mouth that gives her away. She's about my age, I can see that easy enough. I notice it all in passing. I'm too tired to give it serious consideration. I don't really know why I'm so tired. This life catches up with me every once in a while, and too much thinking. It always does me in because I know there isn't a fucking place I can go with it, like never being able to take out the trash.

I pick up a few more things at the counter, so I don't look too suspect. Gum, batteries, cards. I'm spending money on this shit and I don't need any of it, trying to keep it straight in my head if this is costing more than the stuff I got in my pockets. But then, that's not really the point, never has been. I'm way off tonight, because before I know it pretty cashier has me pinned. It's that old familiar routine, you know your caught; she starts ringing stuff up really slow, looking it over like she hasn't seen it eight million times, checking some book by the register with one eye and watching me with the other, really slow. She's either waiting for somebody, or trying to calculate how she's going to take me all by herself. I'm waiting for the one second she looks away, to take the shit out of my back pockets and drop it on the floor. She never gives me a break.

In a minute she quits her phony perusal of the price catalog, and kind of forgets she was in the middle of ringing up my five or six bits of crap. She stands there for a second with her arms crossed and then motions me to lean over the counter like she's got a secret to tell me. Naturally I'm a little apprehensive. I got all kinds of unhappy things pictured, like maybe she knows karate or something. As soon as I lean over she reaches around me and grabs my ass with both hands, and gets everything in my pockets, and the back of my jeans all at once. Without saying a word she lays the stuff out on the counter; a transistor radio, some fishing lures, a silver fountain pen, and a pint of whiskey, along with my wallet and the diary of Anne Frank. She snuffs out a laugh when she sees the book, like what's a boob like me doing with this book? I don't know why she doesn't ask me to empty my coat pockets, but I'm glad.

She comes around the counter "OK You, that's it, you know I've seen you in here before don't you?" She puts my arm behind my back like she's a cop and starts pushing me to the back of the store. Bump bump with her little body, but she's got the momentum of a freight train. I don't fight because I'm pretty sure she's got someone twice my size watching on a hidden camera, else she wouldn't have the guts to push me around? but I'm wondering like mad what she means by 'Seen me in here before'? When I've been in Charleston two days and never even seen this place. I try to reason with her, try to bargain with her, and then I start to get pissed realizing she hasn't really got a thing on me because I never walked out.

We get to a doorway that leads to a flight of old wooden stairs; I guess the offices are up there. I expect someone will be meeting us, but after she pushes me into the hall and shuts the door she lets me go and hops up on the stairs in front of me.

"Don't even think of _looking_ at that door" she says "It's a security door. It won't open now unless I press a button"

Now I'm getting scared imagining the fun date she's probably got all planned for me with some gorilla upstairs. When I don't move she grabs my hands and starts walking backwards. She's holding them too tight, and I can feel her nails digging into my skin. I must have made a face because she says

"If I let you go are you going to keep walking?"

"What do you think baby, I think up is my only way out isn't it?"

"Alright then"

She lets go still backing slow up the stairs. I stood still a beat too long and she stopped and raised her eyebrows. We're moving again; the scene feels freakish and I'm wondering if this is becoming one of those abstracts that's going to haunt me in my next life; the dry music of the old stairs- creak when she steps, groan when I follow- sour smell of crumbling plaster and warped wood; this dark-haired little girl with amber eyes and a green polo shirt and her name tag on upside down; _VUIMP3 WI Oll3H_, dancing me up the narrow passage way rolling out forever, and everything washed in muddy light. My black-haired,tiger eyes; strong as a mountain and small as my thumb. I'll be seeing you of context for eternity, thinking about it all wrong, like I wasn't just some worthless dime-store novel thug, but a big explorer being led through the wilderness by Vuimpe of the jungle. It's probably the dirty light playing tricks but she's starting to look different. She doesn't look so hard anymore and I let my guard down a little, although I'm not sure why because I know I'm still fucked.

We're finally in the upper hallway. It's dark and I hear her fiddling with keys and locks, then a door opens up unto this little apartment. Not what I was expecting. It's nice and homey and the light is clean and soft. We go inside and shut the door and I stand there feeling wrong. She doesn't say anything but goes to a drawer takes out some papers and spreads them across a table, she's looking over them all serious and without looking up she tells me to sit down. I go to pull a chair up to the table and she looks up quick with this funny expression, half disbelief half like she wants to laugh, and tells me, pointing to the couch "no, not there, over there."

I go and sit down like she says. The couch is big and too soft and I sink down in it, falling backwards. Swallowed up by cushions I make a noise like someone stepping into quicksand. This sea monster of a sofa has me trapped. I'm lost, I sit there playing my fingers across my knee while she keeps playing with her papers. I lose focus for a few minutes and I come back to her swooshing the papers to the floor and cursing under her breath. Then she's standing near me at the southern end of the table, leaning back on her arms, watching.

I'm trying to read that look and for once I really can't. It's a mix of boredom and disappointment and sorrow, but kind of cheeky like maybe those things are old pals she's gotten used to. I think about what I see in people's eyes when they're reading poetry, or getting lost in a good piece of music. It makes me nervous, more nervous than I was thinking she was going to have my ass beat to a pulp. I don't know what to say, but she won't quit staring at me with those jungle eyes of hers, so I have to come up with something. Waving my finger at her name tag I try to make a joke;

"Baby you know you got your shirt on upside down?"

She looks down at her chest like in all her life it's the first time she's noticed it, then looking back at me again says very softly, but definitively "Oh." Next thing I know she's pulling the shapeless green polo off, over her head. Underneath she's wearing one of those white undershirts like I wear, except of course she's given a whole new definition it.

What's funny is, I don't realize until then how far gone I am on my own unhappy trip. I'm not blindsided or turned on like I should be, only wondering what kind of dirty trick she's pulling, sure that's got to be it. No one this beautiful has looked me straight in face for more than two minutes without wincing, or asking for money in a long time. Most of the sorrow's gone out of her gaze now, and it's all about the poetry. Where is that coming from? Not from my ugly face, my dumb body stuffed halfway in the crack of her couch. But she gets me sure enough; still holding her position by the table she reaches up with one hand and takes a few pins from her hair. The science fiction queen vanishes in a tumble of black, this waterfall of shining black hair. That's a tough one for me to suspect, or dismiss. I feel like someone opened the door to a furnace, the heat slamming into me, and I know if she is up to something she's going to win. I must look really stupid, really _something_, because she laughs. It leaves a shady echo in the room, and she bites her lip,soft,thinking deep. She's not coming on strong, she's trying to work out an idea

"It's cool baby face, take a breath, we aren't here to hurt each-other are we?"

"I thought we were." was all I could come up with. She moves a few steps closer and that couch and me have to get re-acquainted fast. I was backing off into the corner like a scared spider. I didn't want her to think I was anything like that; a pig, a spider planning an ambush, a jackass; please baby lets avoid the new Johnson zoo. A few steps more and she's completely left the safe shore of her table, and still she's reading, reading and that wrecks me. Everything is an _almost,_ like walking from shadow to sun and getting stuck between; her hair is almost long, her skin more or less golden, her face, her body nearly perfect, and her assessment of me, close to favorable, almost wanting, almost passionate. I don't move because I don't know which direction this ambiguity will take. I'm too afraid because I know everything good is always thin and unreliable as a dream. And I'm starting to think this might be good, and that's when things always fall apart.

I'm not even one hundred percent sure she's seducing me. I mean, I'm not that dim, I know she _is_, but what her plan is I can't figure. I'm twenty-three, I must have seen everything at least once by now, but looking at her looking at me, I could be wrong. She finally sits down next to me, and I'm surprised. I feel pretty good, but there's a thrumming inside of me like someone's thumping my bass strings. She smells so good, she smells warm. It's all in her hair and her clothes, a forest perfume, a forest without any thorns or bears in it; just moss, smooth rocks and swaying trees, and maybe a little stream. She's wearing baggy pants with pockets up and down the side, she takes a bag of weed out of one of the pockets, dumps it out on a magazine laying there and starts playing around with it while she's talking to me.

"You always this quiet or are you sick or something?"

There was a little roughness to her voice, like she'd spent a good part of her life crying or yelling or sucking down cigarettes three at a time. No more than a trace in an otherwise sweet tone, like the flicker of sorrow I saw in her face.

"No, I'm not sick-not like that."

"Not like what? What do you mean? _Are_ you sick, like in any way?"

She was looking at me sideways and I got where she was going; it made me squirm and I didn't want to continue with it."

"No I'm not sick, not at all, never."

"You promise?"

"If you want."

She was smiling over the mess on the magazine; Betty homemaker had green in her hair and seeds in her teeth.

"I thought you looked a little pale is all, I mean for this time of year in Charleston."

"I don't know anything about this time of year in Charleston, I'm not from here."

"I guessed … Maybe you'll tell me where you're from later?"

"Later? How did you come to that- that we're going to have a _later_?'

She didn't answer my question; looking me up and down quick, her eyes were beams searching the dark water for spy boats or monsters.

"Take your coat off Jimmy, the race is canceled."

Huh? I could feel how dumb I sounded answering too late, laughing a little.

"You know, Jim Stark, rebel without a cause?...You can wake up now, the universe has ended."

"Oh right." another stupid laugh. Except this one got away with me because those words kept swimming around in my head and I was digging them. I took my coat off and tried to fold it behind me, so the shit in the pockets wouldn't fall out and spoil the dream I was having. She was shaking her head like she knew all along. The Joke was on me.

"So we were talking about, uh…places, places of origin, was that it?"

"Right; see, if it meant anything to you, you'd have told me already. People always want other people to know where they're from right off. Its natural, a vanity thing, like people with their kids, and if they don't then something's not right; but they always get to it sooner or later because good or bad its inside of them, same as pride or bad blood, they gotta get it out or go nuts. But with you I can tell it's not there, for better or worse."

"That's right. I don't like to think about it, but I'll make you a deal for _later; _I'll tell you where I'm from if you tell me why..."

"Why _what?_"

I couldn't finish, I wanted to say _if you tell me why you look at everything like it's a sad song_. But it felt too intrusive, and even cruel compared to what she said, I couldn't do it. But she was waiting, expecting something, so I gave her a pleasingly dull response.

"Oh nothing, you were looking at me kind of screwed up, I mean funnier than people usually do, and I wondered why."

"No I don't, not really. Is it that bad the way I look at you? I wasn't trying to bring you down, it's the way I am I suppose"

"No, it's nothing, but you know"

I flick my finger at the ugly piece of black leather over my eye. She doesn't notice, she's gone back to her project. I feel like a dick now, embarrassed. A half hour ago I thought she was going to have her boyfriend turn me into sausage and now she's got me on her sofa like we're old friends, and I can't get over myself. It's been too hard to do lately.

"Tell you what, Mr. mystery, you tell me where you're from-and make it a good story and I'll try to come up with something equally revealing."

She was lining the finished reefers up like soldiers on the table; she lit one and passed it to me; nasty stuff, skunky and thick. I feel the smoke all oily, clinging to my hair, and my mouth is getting dry. I was hoping she'd forget it, snuff it or let it go out but it kept coming back to me. The whole time we were making odd small talk about what we did, how we lived and all. I said more than her,and still that wasn't' much. I told her I lived in Sweden for a few years and spent most of my time on the sea, being in the Merchant Marine and all since I was seventeen. I avoided the fun details about how I ended my illustrious career. I didn't want to remember any of it, so I suppose while we talked I came off apathetic or plain short. But looking back now at everything she told me, I hear the echo of my own abstract in the delivery of hers.

She grew up in Charleston and went away to New York for a few years, dancing, going to school hoping to get into someplace like NYCDA. She stopped short at why she ended up back here working in a drug store. I didn't ask, like I said, her tone didn't exactly invite unchecked curiosity. So we ping ponged some technical details back and forth, and joked around a little. I couldn't help myself, if I listened too close I started hearing things between the bland facts. But never mind. I was so wasted by that time I might have read my own shit and saw truth and divinity.

She sat back against the opposite arm of the couch watching me, reading again. I figured our game of this is your life/twenty questions was over and now we might have some fun. It wasn't like I didn't want to talk to her at all; in fact I _needed_ to find something to say. Normally it wouldn't matter. I could sit with a girl like her for hours without talking, only looking, letting my mind do circus tricks. But at the moment the incentive to keep a poker face and let my thoughts do their own thing wasn't there. I was feeling compelled to say something, anything because I was floating this dark idea that talking with her- not about how we got here, the why and when-but only about what it felt like, was key to keeping order in the cosmos.

That sounds weak; what I mean is, if you see a spectacular sunrise, or hear of piece of music that blows you away, what good does it do to sit there and try to explain what you saw or what you heard? No one can ever see exactly what you did, even if they were right there with you. Better to stop dead still and feel the colors, or the notes Let them run through you, around you, and shape your words.

I could talk to her like that, in the colors of blood and sunlight and deep water; in jazz notes all broken up like glass and wailing blues and steel guitars moved by the moon. It sounds right, but I'm stoned and tongue-tied and still baffled as to what I'm doing here. Clinically, I could take a pretty accurate stab at that one; I just don't know what's behind it. I want to say something and all I get out is,

"So, is this your place?"

Stupid fuck-I gave myself away, the horny pig in me wondering what the chances are someone's going to come through the door. Raising her eyebrows she smiles at me from her island, a gotcha smile.

"So" she says "That your real hair color?"

What a weird question, and probably the only one I haven't been asked yet.

"What? Yeah it's mine".

I touch my head quick like this verifies it.

"Man you're slow aren't you?" she says, and now I get it; another pointless question that'll answer itself soon enough. I try to play it off the only way I know how, with more stupidity. She waves it away, me looking under the waistband of my jeans and re-affirming for my own benefit that yes, it's real.

"Forget that, I wasn't _only_ trying rag on you. Honestly, I've never seen a guy with hair your color that's all."

"You've never seen a yellow-haired man before, where have you been anyways?"

"No, I've seen plenty of fair-haired guys, just none like you. Yours is like" she stopped, inspecting some idea, and rejecting it. "Yours is like gold fire, no, blond fire, like the flames around the sun. Like Helios."

"Helios, what is that?"

"Not what, who. Helios the sun God. You're so warm too...Yeah, you're the sun. Beautiful Helios crossing the sea,bringing and taking all the light."

I didn't know what to say, I just shrugged, and smiled. We both sat silent and frozen for I don't know how long, I was stoned and time was doing its own thing. She started to giggle, really low at first like she was hoping it could stop, but she was getting to me too. She finally let go, and she had the most incredible laugh I've ever heard. I don't think as long as I live I'll forget it. All I can say is it was beautiful, but not in the same way as herself, it belied her.-I mean, she's a knockout, but in this blue, spooky, shadowy way I can't really place; It's like when you look at a picture of a rose and you get caught up admiring it, thinking about how pretty it is, how soft, how sweet, and then you realize that rose has probably been dead for fifty years-that kind of weird melancholy. But when she laughs you forget that. Some people laugh all lively that way and it only sets you more outside of them, when she laughs you get all wrapped up in it, it gives you an honest high, like sailing or looking up at clouds racing across the sky on a winter day.

The sound of it cut through the fog I was in and all at once I didn't feel so squeamish, all hung up on the edge of paranoia and lust.I heard music coming up from nowhere, mixing with her laughter and rising out of it as it faded. A little bombastic, not my style, but nice. it didn't matter much I couldn't really hear the words, it was all about the tune and the sound.

Meanwhile she'd moved closer to me, and she was touching my hair, running her fingers through it, pulling pieces of it softly and letting them fall while she absently recited something different for each one. It didn't register right then what those words were; I was distracted to put it nicely. First it hadn't really occurred to me then that my hair had gotten so long, I never pay attention, second, no ones ever touched me like that, like this was it and we had all the time in the universe.

She closes the small distance between us and lays her head on my shoulder. I'm knocked out by this and I don't know why. I can't move and I've got nothing to say that would be right. The music is quiet, kind of sweet and eerie and I can hear us both breathing. That's all for a minute, and then I hear the words

"_Say goodbye to all your friends  
we're gonna be sorry  
For a while that's how it goes  
But then again, who knows  
About the rain"…_

I'm way too stoned and the fog is closing in again, and she's shaking a little, crying or something. In a second I'm even more fucked up; she moves up a little so I can feel her breath on my neck.

"Jeez, you smell good."

I don't know what she means, I don't care, and it doesn't matter. This is it. I feel crazy heat turning me inside out again. I mean to keep playing it smooth for as long as possible though. As long as she wants me to, or as long as I can help it. I reach around and put my hand on her arm and can't stop myself from drawing it all the way up to her shoulder, her neck, and if she doesn't back away I know what happens next. She's so damn soft, like a breeze, and I'm falling into it. It must be show-time because she's got her hand on my fly, pressing it there, and then in a flash it's over. She sits up taking all her warmth with her, but she's smiling a little;

"Hey man, hold up, the carnival is still in town for a few more days"

I put my hands up in surrender; trying to apologize "it's been a while. I'm sorry."

Now she really grins "no you're not! Though I do believe you when you say it's been a long time, I do think you are sincere, but there's more to it than you let on."

"What do you mean?"

"You're talking about one thing, but I bet there's a lot more behind it, like you haven't had any real fun since you were a little kid."

"How do you figure? I'm a grown man; I know how to have a good time."

" I get you. You know how to fuck and drink and drive fast and dance a little, but all that shit is one big empty hustle to finance the chutzpa you need to cover up for something you lost a long time ago."

"Is that so?"

I barely manage my weak comeback; the ever-present fog has taken on yet another personality and is freezing around me. I can't move, can't back away. I've thought about my life in a thousand different ways, trying to make it fit, trying to sand down the sharp corners and flatten out the warps, but it's a project I can shove in a closet if I need to. I can slam the door and lock it, and the next day is always waiting for me and the next free and clear. But this girl, she just took my philosophy and wrung it out. Everything is shit, a lie, I left the real and the true and the good on the side of a LA freeway eighteen years ago. Why her though, why'd she have to be the one to remember that for me. Like she knows this priceless nightmare of mine better than I do. She was a stranger, I liked her that way. The way it goes with me and the world; we don't get serious, now what? I can get indignant if I need to though, and I found my voice quick enough.

"So if you think I'm all hustle and bullshit, and you don't want to fuck me, or drink with me then what am I here for, unless you still got something shady planned. Maybe the cops are still coming, or your boyfriend?"

She got up so quick she made me jump. She got up and took a few steps into the room, and stopped still. There was a shaft of blue light coming through the curtains, from a building across the street and it kept fading in and out, washing over her where she stood and making her all ghostlike. I forgot about myself for a minute, watching her, wondering why that blue light hitting her was hurting my heart, then she breaks the spell;

"Don't be dense honey; I never said that did I? Don't make me out like I'm trying to hunt you down or show you up-I don't know you any better than you know me."

Her voice had a cold, sad edge to it again, so it took me a minute to notice she was holding her hand out to me. I wasn't fast enough getting up, she was already leaving me behind swaying to the music and looking far away like that girl on the shell. I thought it was funny because I never could have found a dance in that tune, but she made it look right.

We were dancing, nothing much, caught in the same sway, fading in and out in the same beam of blue light, blue turning silver, turning dark.

" _And the light that shines  
Paints a trace of sadness  
On the street I wait  
But I can't seem to get to you"_

She laid her cheek against my shirt and I felt her breath through it, hot and slow across my skin. Again she said I smelled good, like it was the only important thing in the world, and I was starting to think she was a little crazy; it was too warm in the room, and I was sweating because of it, and because I had lost my confidence. My compass was broken, turning wherever. I was drifting, having no idea where to go with her, where she wanted me to go. It should have been easy, she put her arms around my waist, she moved against me _into me _the same as a hundred women before, but something wasn't clicking, and it wasn't only with me.

I didn't figure her being that close to me was an oversight, so she probably wasn't likely to get too indignant over anything, as long as I played nice. Some women say one thing and always mean something else; they toss you around , play rough and dirty and then when you throw it back they retreat, dodge you. Not right away but sooner or later. In a week, maybe two they disappear; they don't call you back, they vanish through a trail of people the way a small town, or a good deed fades through history books. She was here yesterday, she will be here tomorrow. That sort of crap.

Some chicks hang you up because you don't push hard enough, but I couldn't figure this girl for either side. I really was beginning to believe she didn't want anything but to stand here this way forever, leaning against me; a one eyed slob with sweaty hands and a dick that wouldn't stay still. An asshole coming out of nowhere into her world with no happy thoughts. What if that piece in my coat and my not so charitable outlook had decided right then to dance, then it wouldn't have been her and me doing the same. My mind was going down the dark alley it does sometimes. I'm alone there and that's where I start thinking about death-feeling it- I could get lost in the black maze forever. I don't want to get that heavy now.

Maybe this girl is spun, stuck in third gear, but she's real, and she's warm and she's keeping me alive now, keeping my head from getting beat in by the echo of my voice bouncing back with nothing to dilute it. This could be a long night. She moves her face up a little and I feel her kissing my neck, gentle and hard at the same time-her lips moving easy as sleepy clouds, and her teeth pressed against all that softness like she meant to bite me. My knees were getting weak, and this sweet feeling of being washed away was starting to creep up from there and take over my entire body.

I was thinking, this is what the first time should be like,and it hit me that I never knew that-a hundred times and never a beginning. I thought I was proficient; the wolf when I want to be and the lamb when I need to be. But without a beginning I _am _nothing, all smoke and bullshit like she said. No matter what or how though it's been so long, too long since I made it with anyone –fucked-for lack of a friendlier word. Six months or more,I quit calculating a while back. even longer since anything pretty, if ever.

There's no love anywhere though, not really, so if I thought it touched me even once it was only something I imagined to keep from going insane; I see better now with one eye than I did with two. When anything's wrong, but particularly if you have a messed up face, they don't even bother to hide their disgust. It's like you are a shadow, or emptiness; the easy shape of expectation, so grateful for the stingy glimmer of sunshine they flash your way you won't have the balls to want any more or any better. Aren't they right though? I quit wanting anything more-anything real and true a long time ago.

The old _pall _is creeping up on me, the earth going out underneath me and all my blood turning cold in my veins, slowing, stopping-and it occurs to me, its possible I was like this even before B; Poisonous and empty. I think about what happened before her, where I was, and who-or what-and it could be all along I was the lie, not her.

Love and hate, kicking around together one day when the chi of the universe was at a dismal all time low, created me out of junk and waste; a diversion, a big hoot while they waited for the tide to come back in. It meant to wash me out, but it missed me; so here I stand trying to make myself genuine with the ground always coming and going beneath my feet. But that flood might remember me properly one of these nights, and then its all history, oblivion in the sands. The sinking spooks me; I'd give anything to make it stop, to shake myself into another reality, even if it was bad it couldn't be as bad as this.

I know she doesn't want me to put any serious moves on her, at least not yet. I can feel that if even I'm too dim to get anything else, but I also see the perfect opportunity to free myself, and wonder if what follows will be inconsequential compared to the relief. Anyways, without putting much more thought into it I lean my head down and kiss her, soft at first, here and there wherever I can land; her forehead, her nose, her eye. I'm bracing for the first blow, the moment she backs off with look on her face like a slamming door, but I can't stop. I am brushing all her long dark hair back, sweeping shadows from the moon. Her cheek is soft as snow, and my breath comes back way too hot.

I'm pushing it, wondering even as I'm getting lost why she's not up in arms. I'm getting drawn into a place I'm not too familiar with; act one with no horizon, no goal. I am forgetting that I don't know what to do and just doing, kissing her. Her skin tastes like apples, not those happy colored waxy things, but apples filched from the darkest part of autumn _,_full of opium and wine.

What was happening to me then? Remembering makes everything go a little dark…I'm not good with words. I wish I could keep what's left, but I keep shouting it into a storm, words and memories get swallowed up, and lost, nothing is mine anymore.

We're dancing, but not dancing and I'm not high anymore but I'm getting smashed on the way she tastes, and probably leaving a few marks but she's not objecting. She's not kissing me back, but she doesn't have to. I know she's cool, and I know she knows what time it is because she's leaning against me and there isn't an inch free space between us. But what my body wants, or thinks it wants doesn't concern me anymore because there is a sting and ache that's taking the right of way over everything. It's what I felt when I watched her fading in and out of the blue light, when she laid her head on me the first time, and even before her; I'm going so deep into that, right along with that place she's taking me. I don't want to get too far, where I can't breathe, where all my weapons are useless against the dark and the tide.

She looks up at me like what was raging in me was so loud she could hear it, she looks up at me but doesn't say anything, she raises up on her toes and the movement brings us by necessity,even closer. She's using my ass for leverage. She kisses me, and lets me kiss her properly, no more playing, no more love bites.

She vanquishes gravity, tumbling us away in violet. I know, like I know I'm gonna die one day alone that my mouth has never done this before, I can't even think of screwing anymore. Even while I'm aware enough of my flashpoint I can't get how I could give this up for anything else. I don't care what happens; that pressure is creeping up the base of my spine already, taking away all the strength in my legs, and I might lose it right here but I don't want her to let go of me, and I don't want to let go of her. Baby why didn't you find me a dozen years ago when the world was still green?

I'm not suggesting I wasn't more than willing to take her up against the nearest wall, that I didn't want to feel her hands on my bare ass, holding on that way until we were out of our minds with it, but I couldn't reconcile that devastation with what I was feeling inside. I was an acrobat seeing the sky flying underneath me for the first time. But I was an acrobat _before _I met her, floating on my web. I just never looked. Christ it's hard to do this, to make my hand and my brain bring this to life again and commit it to a worthless piece of paper; paper's not gold, not silver. It's meant to die like we are, to blow away. But I'm gonna drop my rag again, and I still haven't forgotten Mrs. Doctors priceless advice.

Anyone finding this epic of shit in a thousand years, if it lasts that long buried under some fantastic destruction, is gonna get a good laugh. The one-eyed prophet dictating from the empire of the profane, a kingdom where nothing good can ever live. The words are escaping the prison of the paper and hanging in the dark above my head, waiting to fall on me…falling trees and mountains, the sun burned out letting go of the sky. They say you can destroy the agent, all the paper and the ink that made the thought a physical thing, but once allowed you can never truly extinguish the thought. It lives somewhere in the ether forever. So I'll just wait here for the impact; I can't move. I'm broken, I looked, and I crashed.

I don't know what she's feeling right then, only that I am not going to move again unless she moves first. I never made love this way, except for a few close calls with B that ended too soon. To reach the top was always, always the rule with her. Maybe though, if we…Well, I'm gonna kill that reflection now. This kind of mess never happens to me; if she isn't going to give it up I can always sense it, and adjust. We can misbehave all we want and still exchange our farewells nice and clean and friendly. If she is, I can play along all day, all night no matter how wild we get; but when we get down to it we're going to see the sun or the moon rise at least twice before the sweat dries.

But standing there with my black-haired girl I was something better for a while, whether I wanted to be or not. That's why it didn't matter to me that I was about to fall on my knees. That I was going to come in my pants, fumbling around all purple like some stupid pimple-faced rookie in the back seat of a car.I don't give shit, let it happen Just keep me here.

Then as quick as it took that thought to cross my brain, it was over. She drew back in one easy move, the tide being sucked back, all the way back and out of reach. But, I don't think I would have tried to bring it back. It didn't seem cruel what she did, or even thoughtless in particular, just another part of the dance we were doing, same as what I did next. Strictly involuntary. Trying to ride it out, I turned around and crouched down, holding on to the table leg. I suppose I looked pretty damn weird, but I didn't care because there were hot little daggers stabbing me in the gut. Life's full of fucking endless wonders isn't it? I just hung there gasping, waiting, staring at the carpet, and nothing happened; only pain and the nasty prickling like when your circulation gets cut off.

It took a while until I finally recovered and got up the nerve to seek out my little MC. I was looking over my shoulder, careful at first and saw her sitting in the window smoking a cigarette, looking out at the bluish night and blowing yin and yang and sleeping cobras and infinity into the dark. I didn't approach her though; I stayed where I was, slumped on the floor supporting myself against the table. She remembered me in her own time, and when she did it was all speculative. She says nothing, holding her cigarette out for me. A peace-offering where there was no war to crow over. I get up, except it and we sit silent in the window for a long time. Finally she asks,

"You alright?"

"No!" I wasn't, I felt like I was going to puke. I tried grinning it away instead.

You can say a world of shit with one word, I must have. I answered with a reasonably categorical negative, but didn't get a categorical response. I don't know how I came across, in what way I miscalculated my own thoughts, but she started laughing. She was laughing so hard I was afraid she might fall out the window and I put my arm out spontaneously.

"What's so funny, all I said was no?"

"You think so do you? just no! Here is the little word, sword drawn, charging into battle like Napoleon in Moscow."

"What?

I was trying hard recall my history lessons. It didn't matter I still wasn't reconciling myself with the image.

"Well, someday" she continues shaking her head, "the smoke will clear and the snow will melt… forget it. But next time you get itchy to knock over a drug store, take a look in the mirror first, because you could make bank with that face."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"I don't , whatever you think. I'm just saying there are things inside of you that might ignite the world and you probably don't even know it."

"I wouldn't care to. I don't want start any fires."

I started feeling sicker saying those words, but she cut me off almost like she could see what I was thinking.

"So Blue Boy, what's your name anyway?"

"You sure you wanna know that?"

"I asked didn't I-Let me see_._-"

" It's Steven-Steve."

I was about to ask her name when she took my arm and started tracing her finger across my skin.

"Guess."

Closing my eyes I tried to let the patterns make pictures in my brain, tried to remember her name tag.

"E..D..W"-

"Edwina. Just Edie,okay. So what do you want to do, _Steve_?"

I knew she wasn't going back to what we were up to before but I couldn't help giving her my best eying, even though I only got one I can put a lot into if I try.

She laughed again; the way she was laughing before, so I was too, and that made it worse and we were sitting in that window howling like a couple of hyenas. She finally takes a breath and says we should go driving.

"I don't have a car."

"I didn't say I wanted you to drive me around did I? I've got a car. Bet you don't even have a license do you?"

"it kept falling out of the hole in my pocket so they took it away until I get some new pants."

"_They_?" Is all she says, "So this is like a conspiracy to…"

" Don't know To get me to buy more pants?"

"Sounds about right. You can't trust a man who doesn't buy pants regularly, right? I mean, he quits buying pants that's a major declaration."

"Because then he quits buying shirts, then shoes, and pretty soon he isn't buying anything

"until it gets to the big stuff."

"Like illusions and time?"

"And that brings whole house of cards down."


End file.
